Mustachians, introduce yourselves!

[Patirou]

First of all, congrats on your PhD ! Big milestone mate and that is great.

@Voodoo

the pay is 85k gross

for a PhD and in pharma industry that seems way too low.

As a comparision, my starting job, master in chemical engineering (so not too far away in the field, in the wastewater business was 90k, with some nice advantages (25d holidays basis, 40h workweek, and very high flexibility, like taking 2 weeks off on overtime only). location was the Zurich region. Basically I was doing designing wastewater treatment plants for municipal towns and supporting the execution (functional description, commissioning etc.) It is known to be not the best paying field. Pharma, oil & gas, biotech and nuclear were known to be much higher paying (I got some friends who started off at 100k in Switzerland).

BTW I do not know in what you did your PhD, but biotech is not only limited to pharma. There is a lot going on in more classic chemical industry (polymers produced via bacteria for instance). You can also go to a plant designing field for pharma, which is also high paying (and there is a LOT going on there right now).

[Voodoo]

@Patirou

for a PhD and in pharma industry that seems way too low

I agree.

However:

• I had no previous experience in the industry
• I was restricted to the area around Zurich (or, unwilling to commute farther)
• Unfortunately, my PhD was rather specialized and the knowledge/skills earned from there are not very much in demand outside academia. In hindsight, it would have been a lot smarter to forgo the PhD.

I see my current position as a first step in the pharma industry in order to gain experience and skills that are actually in demand.

[rolandinho]

@Patirou

@Voodoo

the pay is 85k gross

for a PhD and in pharma industry that seems way too low.

It was my thought too. But then I remembered, that I’ve had offers at the same time widely apart (like almost 50%) between Siegfried and Dottikon (low) (let’s call it Aargau-Pharma) and the Basel-Pharma (high).
So this is certainly something to factor in.

[Voodoo]

I don‘t know about Basel, but I applied at Lonza as well. There, they would have offered me 105k for a lower position than I have right now.

[MrCheese]

@Voodoo

There, they would have offered me 105k for a lower position than I have right now.

Why didn’t you go for it? You can always try to mention that offer to the current boss and see what they say.

[Voodoo]

@MrCheese

Why didn’t you go for it?

It was in Valais, which is just a neglectable 2.5 hours commute from Zurich…

[whatever]

Whatever guys. I’m silently lurking here for a longer time already, with a frugal / mustachian mindset for even longer. It basically grew as a poor student wanting to travel. Now I work in Finance in Zurich. Obvisouly into passive investing, and like probably many here I could have started doing so earlier. I track my expenses and do monthly spending reviews. Saving rate post-tax (incl. investments and pillar 3a) is at roughly between 50%-60% since I make above 100k. Expense and wealth tracking kind of became a hobby. For me it’s FI above RE, but you never know, of course.

[AnarquiaJoker]

Hi everyone!
28-year-old boy, in the world of work and resident in Switzerland (Ticino) for 2 years.
I am studying economics books and courses slowly due to the high workload, but I would not like to waste too much time and start investing, perhaps refining more when I have everything clearer.

[FI_yes_RE_maybe]

Hi everyone!

I’’v been reading for quite a while so that I decided today to join the community. First of all thanks everyone for all the contributions, there really is great content overall in this forum.

As for me: I am in my mid-thirties and work in the financial sector in Zurich. I’ve often (but not always) had a relatively frugal lifestyle and already thought when I was in my 20s of retiring in my 50s (well before having heard anything about the FIRE-movement).

As my name suggests, it’s more about becoming financially independent - whether I actually retire earlier remains to be seen. At the moment, I like my job very much - but who knows what it will look like in 10-15 years’ time. Saving rate post Tax is somewhere around 50%.

Looking forward discussing with all of you,

[couch2million]

Hello everyone,

My name is couch2million (C2M), and I’ve started my journey from my couch to 1 million CHF, which is more or less my current FU number.

Nearly in my 30, I work in the IT sector in the Suisse Romande since nearly 8 years now

I have been introduced to the FIRE movement more or less around mid 2020.
The FI is not new to me, as I have always been frugal my whole life, even though due to a family financial situation rather than personal choice.

What was new for me was the RE part, and thanks to blogs such a mrrip, thepoorswiss and mustachianpost, I’ve slowly started learning about the possibility of investing and how to do it, as for me it has always been a complete mystery, while I was staring at UBS eating all the gains of my 3pillar with their fees.

I’ve started my blog to keep track of my journey
https://couch2million.blogspot.com

[EverydayJedi]

Greetings everyone and happy new year!

I have been a lurker on this forum over the past few months but decided to sign up as I have benefitted a lot from the wealth of information and constructive dialogue happening here.

I am early 40s male, having worked in US and UK, and moved to CH around 5 years ago. Having saved up a fair chunk of money over the years but never put it to good use. Finally got a kick in the butt from a couple of friends last year and decided to start investing. Since then I have been reading a lot on this topic - books, JL Collins, thepoorswiss, bogelheads on Reddit, and was glad to discover this amazing forum dedicated to Switzerland.

Hope to get more involved moving forward and learn from you all.

Thanks
EJ

[_LR]

Hi everyone, happy new year to all mustachians !

I came in Switzerland 2 years ago after my engineering studies with no other goals than eat-sleep-work-repeat abroad. It sound a bit sad…

I have always been frugal because of my education. Recently I decided to optimize my money and start to control a my expenses and invest in order to retire early.
Lot of technical aspects are new for me, however these topics, articles, and this great community made me an other and better guy day after day, I am convinced.

Thanks for reading,
LR

[Sugus]

Hi Mustachians,

I’m a Swiss guy, in my mid-thirties, living in Swiss romande and currently working in the watch industry.

I started investing in 2017 in some Postfinance funds and crypto but that was far from optimal, not even talking about my catastrophic saving rate and my insurance 3rd pillar.

Hopefully since then I’ve found about the FIRE movement and MP’s blog and forum where I found tons of helpful tips to improve my savings and investings.
5 years later I’m on a far better path, about to buy a house and (who knows) on track for FI.

Outside finance I like outdoor sports (triathlon, ski touring, mountainbiking), cooking and going to music festivals.

After spending quite some time reading the forum I hope to be able to contribute and share my own experience.

Looking forward to have interesting discussions with you
Take care.

[FI_yes_RE_maybe]

Great to have you here @Sugus

[314rch]

Dear all,

I’m French and I leave in the Heidi’s country since 2006, at Yverdon-les-Bains more precisely (I^m professor at University of Applied Sciences and volunteer firefighter).

Starting investing 2 months ago (quite new right ?) , I read a lot of things (articles, blogs, videos and reviews on investments, taxes, savings).

Unfortunately, this activity starts very late in my life. I’m 54… Anyway the past is the past and let’s build the future and go ahead !

I have done some investments with the Interactive Brokers platform which does the job for me as expected. I own some “standards” and diversified ETF’s (World, US, Europe, Luxe, Water and Emerging market) and plan to add more each month.

As a side note: I also have a (very very) small amount of BTC on Binance but it’s not relevant and also have an account on eToro for testing only.

I’m in the ‘frugalization’ phase (e.g. exit Postfinance and the monthly fees, welcome ZAC ; it’s over to pay for the Ferrari of the boss )

Thanks to MP who makes me more ‘aware’ of available ways of change in my life. I will never be FIRE but my life quality is very good (my job gives me a lot of opportunities).

The goal now is to makes my money working (even if right now the context seems like walking on eggs) and build a capital to start a new life after 65y

Current hot activity : 3A pillar, taxes and portfolio growing (what to buy and strategy).

I have developed a tool (Python) to visualize my portfolio and simulate other things (a post to come soon).

I hope to continue to learn interesting things here !

πR

PS: some videos I like to watch on youtube: Sebastien Koubar, Yann Darwin.

[Vincent]

Hello there,

I’m Vincent (Obvious ins’t it ?) and decided after a few months of lecture here to join the rank of the people who would like to have their life back sooner than expected and do whatever they want with it (Isn’t it the goal after all ?)

So for the presentation: I am French (please don’t hit me), 28 years of age and started to really have some interest on doing things with my money a year ago I would say. I started to work in Switzerland on March 2019 as a Laboratory Technician at Epalinges. I started my 3rd pillar a year later in June 2020 at my bank. I started a Degiro account investing (very small amounts but it is a start…) in one ETF on May 2021 and open a second 3rd pillar at VIAC in October 2021. I’ll detail all this later in the appopriate sections

So here I am, saving money, investing some, and dreaming to may be have a nice amount one day invested in various forms and living out of it who knows

Happy to be here, pleasure to meet you all !

Vincent

[Fireworks]

Hi everyone,

Long time lurker and first time poster here

I started my FIRE journey end of 2019, after being introduced to the concept of FIRE by my boss at the time.
By then I already had some investments -not all of them following sound principles though- but no specific financial goals other than taking a 1-2 years sabbatical to travel around the world. Learning about FIRE made me realize that living exclusively off my capital was an unexpectedly realistic goal and pushed me to educate myself further about finance.

A bit more about me: I’m based in Romandie, do software development work at an IT company, and I expect to reach FI in the next 15-20 years (sabbatical included). Don’t know where I stand on RE, but I have enough time to figure it out

This forum has provided me with valuable knowledge in the past, so looking forward to contributing back!

Cheers

[RupanSansei]

Hi MP and everyone! I am RupanSansei, I am in my early 30s, living and working in the canton of Aargau. I would like to learn how to take care of my finances, so as to maximise my (few) savings. Grateful to be here!

[cyrill]

Hello Everybody,

I am 33 years old, living in switzerland in canton of fribourg and I am the owner of www.goldenpioche.ch, a small blog about personal finance. Since 2 years, I started to improve my finances and made my first investment. Now, I currently looking to invest more and my current project is to buy a house and rent my 4.5 room that I bought 7 years ago

[NicoFireDoc]

Hello everyone!

I’m a young french doc in my mid twenties. Living close to Bern. Planning to bail in 18 to 24 months.

Learning about FIRE is basically what kept me from burning out and what keeps me grinding for now. I learned about the FIRE Movement back in 2018, been saving aggressively since then, all while keeping my expenses minimal and continuing to live more or less like a student.

I currently save around 80% of my net after tax income, which translates to ~6,300€ saved/invested every month right back into rental real estate investments in France at the swiss border(Alsace), ETFs and a few individual stocks. P2P make up ~10% of my total investments.

After I FIRE, I plan on moving to a LCOL area to increase my standard of living while further cutting my expenses at the same time, for a couple of years, until the mortgage on my last rental unit is fully paid off and I can live in it if I so choose.

My monthly expenses are 400 CHF on rent (being single, I live alone in a hospital-subsidized apartment, where 2/3 are paid by my employer), 380 CHF on basic swiss health insurance, spending 200 CHF on food (almost never eat out, enjoy cooking with raw ingredients), 0 to 50 CHF in transportation (no car, walkable area) , 0 to 150 CHF in leisure/social life (more on the (lightly) introverted side). No water, heating or electricity bills, paid by my employer/the hospital since I basically live on site.

But I digress… after years of mainly browsing the EuropeFIRE subreddit I’m so excited to have come across this swiss-focused community !

I can’t wait to meet you guys in person, in Bern …and beyond !

Nick